


Happy Water

by chewbakasolo



Category: Dragon Age II, fenhawke - Fandom
Genre: I've already done it, M/M, Mental Illness, fenris is such a cute bb omg, it's not quite fluff but it is pretty fluffy, it's too late tho, maybe i shouldn't be typing all of this in the tags . . ., reading lessons, so you're just gonna have to do deal with knowing it's whatever i have, soooo, sorry - Freeform, this might be a tad ooc but i tried to stay pretty true to the characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-15 07:17:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7213081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewbakasolo/pseuds/chewbakasolo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are just two shitty, self indulgent short stories I wrote about Fenris struggling with learning to read the same way I struggle to learn new things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Happily

Fenris stared at the paper, he heard everything Hawke said, but his brain wasn’t making sense of it. There was a disconnect between Hawke’s words and the squiggles on the paper.  
He looked up at the mage slowly, “wait. What?”  
Hawke smiled softly. “You’ve gotten most of it. You only have a few words left, you got this.”  
Fenris grunted, pushing a strand of hair behind his ear, almost pressing his nose to the paper and studying the inscriptions carefully, before shoving the hair back into place. “I can’t.” he whispered.  
“Sure you can,” Hawke smiled helpfully. “Sound it out, like we practiced.”  
“Ha-hap-p . . .” he trailed off.  
“Come on, Fen, ‘hap-’” Hawke prompted, rubbing his shoulder gently.  
Fenris’s eyes started tearing up, he clenched his fist. “I can’t.” His mind was buzzing with hundreds of different thoughts that all somehow connected in patterns he didn’t have the words to explain, and there was no room for the squiggles on the page.  
“I think you just need a break, we’ll continue later,” Hawke grabbed the book slowly.  
“No,” Fenris caught his arm. “I-I can do it.”  
Hawke sighed, and slid it back over to him, “okay. The first word is ‘happily.’ It is pretty long, so I suppose we should just get it out of the way.”  
Fenris nodded solemnly. “Happily,” he let the word roll over his tongue as he stared at the letters. “happily hap-ill-ly.”  
“Yeah, wanna do the next?” Hawke smiled softly.  
Fenris nodded, “a gr-gre,” he paused, rubbing his eyes. “E-A-T. eat, greet.”  
“No. It’s great.”  
“But, it’s spelled-”  
“Yeah, yeah, I know. It doesn’t make sense.”  
Fenris nodded, “ma-man, man-ee.”  
“Many.”  
“Many. y-ye. E-A-R-S. ears. years. Many years. ‘-they lived happily a great many years’.” He smiled at Hawke.  
“Good,” Hawke smiled at him. “I’m impressed you finished it so soon . . . I thought it would take us a lot longer. You're picking this up really fast, Fenris.”  
Fenris nodded, then froze, staring down at the book. “I-I uhm . . . Hawke?”  
“Yeah?”  
“What was it about?”  
Hawke furrowed his brow. “Well, you just read it, didn’t you?”  
“Yes, and it seemed . . . nice. All the letters and words and . . . sentences, but I don’t . . .” he sighed. “I can’t remember. There was a . . .” he furrowed his brow, “a frog. And a . . . princess . . . and I think they had a . . . ball?”  
Hawke chuckled. “Yeah. They did. Do you wanna try reading it again? Maybe you’ll remember the story this time.”  
Fenris nodded, then bit his lip. “Are you sure it’s not too late? Maybe, I should get home . . .”  
“Nonsense,” Hawke practically swatted the words away. “We have plenty of time.”  
Fenris exhaled sharply. “I don’t-”  
“Really, I don’t mind.” Hawke assured him.  
Fenris nodded. “Alright. Thank you.”  
“No problem, anything for my favorite moody elf.”  
Fenris rolled his eyes, flicking back to the first page.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're reading The Princess and The Frog, btw. I think it was pretty obvious from Fen's summary of it, but still. In case you were wondering. Now you know.


	2. Water

“Fenedhis!! That makes no sense!” Fenris groaned.  
“Yeah, well-” Hawke tried.  
“It is spelled like waiter! The vowel-consonant-E means you pronounce the ‘A’ long. Why isn't that right!!”  
“Fenris, calm down. Words are sometimes said differently than they’re spelled.”  
“Why?” Fenris moaned, slumping his head into the pages.  
“I don’t know. Maybe whoever invented this language was just a sadistic asshole.” Hawke joked.  
“Yes, clearly.”  
Hawke guffawed. “Yeah, and I’m sure they had you in mind, specifically, when they made words that are spelled weird.”  
Fenris lifted his head slowly to glare at the human. “This isn’t funny, Hawke. I hadn’t thought it would be so difficult.”  
Hawke put a hand over his mouth, trying to block his giggles. “Sorry, Fen.” After a moment he pulled his hand away, a goofy grin still adorning his features. “I didn’t mean it like that. You’re doing very well.”  
Fenris moaned, burying his head in his arms. “No, I’m doing terrible. I’ll never be able to read.”  
“That’s not true,” Hawke patted his back awkwardly. “I’m sure you’ll be reading grandiose novels teeming with words like ‘placebo’ and ‘continuity’ in no time.”  
“No. It’s hopeless, you should just give up on me,” Fenris sighed.  
Hawke stifled back a laugh. “Don’t be so dramatic. Everyone struggles when they first start learning.”  
Fen peaked up at him from under his fringe. “Even you?”  
Hawke’s smile softened. “Especially me. I remember, I’d accuse my father of lying every time he told me I’d pronounced a word wrong,” Hawke chuckled fondly. “I remember, I’d say words wrong for days to try to prove I was right.” Hawke’s grin widened. “This one time it took Carver saying I sounded stupid for me to admit I’d read the word wrong.”  
Fenris chuckled. “That must have been quite a sight.”  
“I’m sure it was.”  
Fenris shuffled awkwardly. “Am I really doing well?”  
“Absolutely. I’m very proud of your progress thus far.”  
Fenris smiled. “Alright. I’ll continue.”  
“Good,” Hawke moved another paper in front of him. “Try this one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "And I'm sure they had you in mind, specifically, when they made words that are spelled weird." Example: the word "weird". Seriously, fuck that word, I never now how to spell it .-.


End file.
